The Tornado

The Tornado (1917)

The Tornado mostly followed pulp Western formula -- bad guys hold up a town, take a girl hostage, and the hero rides to the rescue. But there were a couple of twists that made it seem more personal than the usual cowboy fare. Ford's Jack Dayton ... is known as "the No-Gun Man" because he faces the villains unarmed, anticipating the character played by James Stewart in George Marshall's 1939 Western comedy classic Destry Rides Again. Dayton is an immigrant who uses the reward money to bring over his mother (Jean Hathaway) from Ireland, a prototypically Fordian situation if there ever was one.

Date of release
1917-03-03
TMDB
5.5 / 10 (2)
Runtime
30m
Genres
Western
Director
John Ford

Casting

Interesting facts

The Tornado is a 1917 American short film directed and co-written by John Ford, who at that time was credited as "Jack Ford". Filmed in California, the two-reel Western starred Ford as well, with a supporting cast that included Jean Hathaway, John Duffy, Peter Gerald, Elsie Thornton, and Duke Worne. This short is generally cited by film historians to be Ford's debut film as a director, although he had served as an assistant director in some earlier productions directed by his elder brother Francis Ford. Produced by Bison Motion Pictures and distributed by Universal Pictures, this short is currently classified as a lost film.

Production and reception

John Ford, who was only 23 years old at the time of this short's production, reportedly got drunk while filming and told producers that he simply ordered the actors what to do and then recorded the action.

The film was defined like: "In his hand-to-hand struggle in the cabin and the jump from the cabin roof to the back of his horse, Jack Ford qualifies as a rough-riding expert". Jack Ford declared The Soul Herder as the first film he directed because he dismissed The Tornado and called it a "brunch of stunts".

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